about subjectivity and google hitrate 
I guess I am not single-minded. I guess that is good. I guess that is less good for my google hit rate. Not that I care. This site is not meant to become a popular blog, or at least I am doing no effort to make it more attractive or easier to reach. I guess that means it is a non-commercial blog? I am however hoping that those (any) of you that reads it (un/frequently) have a certain interest in it. I am not Tyler Green, I am not a journalist and I am not doing much updating on the arts life in Leipzig -- altough I live here. I should tell more about Leipzig and it's art life. Starting on Wednesday. I promise.

My hit rate at google (is it at all possible to find this blog without knowing the link og going through )vitakuben ? I do not think so. thats good. The idea was to have a space online (means someone could read it) that would force me to write some lines now and then. The blog also fits into the concept of Vitakuben the way it is today: underdeveloped and strange. We have done no projects since the oVERstation project (see http://ah.vitakuben.org -- click on oVERstation), and the only one that is doing something with his pages is Aksel (AH). The others (kjersti Bergesen and Nicolai Høgenhaug) are doing next to nothing online (As it happens, Aksel is the onlyone that do now how to program...)

But back to my writing. I do not write that good, not good at all if you ask me. I think the only reason why I am wanted at all by Norwegian (and some foreign mags) is that I do know a few people and I always hear the news early on (when it comes to Norway that is, when it comes to international new within the art world I am probably one of the first Norwegians to read about it, either by friends and contacts or by reading magazines, newsletters and other related written material ). Blogs, I do read a great deal of blogs. not all of them listed in my blogsroll, by there are a few that I read.

But one thing is to want to do something, another thing is to be able to live from it. I cannot live from writing and I know very few people that is independent and being able to pay their bills from writing. I know they do excist, but the marked is just not large enough. That combined with the fact that magazines
a) want many independent writers and
b) do not want to pay that well -- or cannot pay very much -- makes it difficoult to live from writing about contemporary art in a non journalist fashion.


The last two weeks I have been selling advertisement for the online magazine
kunstkritikk, building up a network within Norway, doing some chance, spam-like mails to more international magazines and institutions landing a deal with a few institution and a few international (as in: not Norwegian). That was fun. Organizing was fun. much more fun than writing.

And I mean, I did apply for a job in northern Norway a wile back. The application deadline in on Monday (second round) and I am expecting to be called up, mailed or something like this asking me to come to a job interview -- again. So you see, I hope to be able to work on vermitlung and developing new concepts rather that writing.
-- or so I hope --

got to go, have to write that piece on that the Norwegian gallery wang will not be closed down, but they will probably step down their engagement considerably.



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how's this for a tabloid title: artists are a bit mad and has more sex  
The guardian reports that a new comparative survey shows that artist share some "unusual cognition". They are quite simply a bit mad. And they have twice as many partners as the rest of the population after the age of 18 (in England anyway -- I think up in northern norway where I come from most youth lead a very active sexual life from the age of 13-15 and get their first child at 18-20...) And there is not that many artist around up there (not many queer either although lesbians are socially accepted).

When are they going to do the same thing about art critics and curators?



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the death of a gallery 
there have been rumours for a long time: Galleri Wang , one of the flag ships of Norwegian contemporary art, has problems with their economy. A few days ago it became clearer as their two main investors pulled out.

This is not any longer breaking news in Norway since it was
one of the headlines of the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv yesterday.

It is now clear that Galleri Wang, that since they took in several new (Norwegian) artists in 2001, supporting their artist Børre Sæthre for his My Private Sky exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museum for Modern Art in Oslo same year, represented at both Art Basel (2002 or 2003) and the Armory Show(2003-04). They did statement with Børre Sæthre in Basel 2000.

The rumours have been more than a few, and last year it was reported (one more time by the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv) that they had problems and was considering several different models for the gallery.

Earlier this year they let the same artist they started to work with only two years earlier (but before that they had solo exhibitions with three of them during the last year or so) go. And not only them, some of the artists they had been working with for several years also had to go. It was said that they would cut down to only five artists (my guess would then be: Harald Fenn, Kjell Erik Killi Olsen, Kjell Nupen, Torbjørn Rødland and Børre Sæthre), make a project room up front for showing new artists and doing art dealing from the office. I guess this model is still interesting as it would cut costs - if the artists would agree working with the gallery under such conditions.

Now the gallery haven't showed anything since April this year, and for the new
Standard Oslo gallery would be showing Torbjørn Rødland at the NADA art fair came as a surprise for the Norwegian arts life.

One comes and one goes.




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I hate this 
I just wrote a longer note for the blog -- online for some reason -- and then it disappeared as I posted it.

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is there anybody out there 
a norwegian art dealer wrote in a student news paper when he was studying art history that [contemporary] art is a surplus (of society). He wrote this in connection to the closing down of a [independent] contemporary art space as the city where he then lived would not support it financially. He was comparing the relation between the city and the institution with that of the painter van gogh. he meant it was really to bad that he bigger brother in this case (the city), would support the poor, but talented and creative little brother (the institution). I guess one could say that it is a surplus. I do ask myself how do all this people survive (me self included), and the answer is: we do not. we survive like this for a short time being and then we change to something else. The problem is that a lot of these people have a long education behind them and feels like losers when there is no need for their capacities. some, on the other hand, look at their education as a foundation beyond that of being an artist/curator/critic etc. and go over to do something completely else with the same energy and interest.

I do not know why I am writing this.



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